The string of announcements underscores Microsoft’s accelerating push into computing hardware over the past three years, starting with the first Surface tablet model in 2012. Mr. Nadella has said developing hardware would be crucial to Microsoft’s ability to keep pace with rapid changes in consumer technology.

The best work Microsoft (and ex-Nokia staff) has done in years. I’m really happy for Microsoft and its employees.

2. Apple introduces us to the Apple Ring in all its Glory From Jack Purcher, on his site, Patently Apple. Note how often the patent says “in some embodiments”, meaning the device doesn’t have to be a ring. In fact, the patent states the device could have a touchpad or a touchscreen. Some of the use cases appear watch-friendly.

Apple explains that there’s a need for electronic devices with faster, more efficient methods and interfaces for interacting and/or controlling external electronic devices.

Note that this is analogous to showing Apple’s share of the overall handset market (i.e., not just smartphones); Apple doesn’t sell the most handsets, either. But what really matters is profit share. If IDC or any analyst firm estimated operating profit from wearables, Apple would be in first place. And it’s just getting started, in terms of distributing Apple Watch and, more importantly, in terms of capitalizing on Apple Watch’s hardware and software platforms (you may need to scroll down a bit).

From the web site of Polyera, which aims to introduce a flexible display product in 2016.

In mid 2016 Polyera will begin shipping the Wove™ Band, the world’s first flexible display product you can wrap around your wrist. […]

User Experience Design

The novel shapes, sizes, textures, and functions enabled by flexible electronics means more than just taking the same electronics we’ve always had and making them flexible – it means creating entirely new experiences. We’ve developed novel approaches to interaction design, information architecture, and visual design to fully leverage the unique properties of flexible electronics.

The latest chapter in the miniaturisation of increasingly smart consumer electronics lies in the hands of chip packagers, an indispensable group of firms whose role in the supply chain alone is worth $27 billion. […]

To serve this market [chip packagers] have come up with an assembly process known as System-in-Package (SiP).

“SiP bundles a ton of components into one simple plug-n-play, almost like a Lego block,” said Taipei-based semiconductor analyst Randy Abrams at Credit Suisse. […]

“The SiP inside the Apple Watch was unprecedented,” Vice President Jim Morrison of analysis firm Chipworks told Reuters. Chipworks found as many as 40 chips in the hermetically sealed pod, more than double any other package it had seen before.

The article doesn’t quite say it, but Apple is heavily customizing, if not designing, much of its own SiP, the “S1”. Why? As I wrote back in March:

This degree of customization is the right call – because it affects everything that’s supposed to make a smartwatch appealing and valuable: size, functionality, performance, battery life, and upgradeability.

So, it’s the start of a new era of post-PC, post-smartphone devices. Most device makers opt to use, or have to use, the “Lego” they can procure. Except Apple.

Yet only five of the 20 most popular free iPhone apps in the United States have versions for the Apple Watch, according to data from App Annie, an analytics firm. And the number of apps for the watch, which now stands at about 7,400, is growing at a slower rate than the explosive uptick of apps that were produced for iPhones and iPads in their early days.

Comparing figures across platforms is a very limiting perspective. It’s like comparing the number of Windows or Mac apps that were quick to create a smartphone version — and guessing the outlook for smartphones based on that. Or the number of television networks that initially made a Roku app, or the number that worked with Apple to create an Apple TV app.

New platforms support products that perform new jobs. Or perform existing jobs in a new way. So, the way customers approach these platforms and products, and the way that developers approach them, will be different than in the last platform.

As time passes, for instance, we might find that the use of native apps on smartwatches is much higher than on phones. Or that the app growth rate is simply different, even in a healthy market. Moreover, we might learn that the “top apps”, let alone the “top free apps”, on smartphones don’t evenly transfer over to smartwatches. And that the way to measure app activity, and to gauge app success or failure, is a bit different. At this point, it’s really too early to tell, and comparisons to smartphones won’t be very helpful.

In a nutshell, you can’t apply all the thinking from the last platform to the new one. That, in part, is why it’s new. And why it will create new uses, new winners, and new ways to thrive.

Fitbit operates in the emerging space for fitness trackers. And they are the leader, but (and it’s a big but) they face massive competition from companies in adjacent spaces like Garmin, Jawbone, Samsung, Xiaomi and, of course, Apple. Even scarier, Fitbit has not answered the seminal question:

“Are we in a standalone category or a feature of a bigger category?”

It could turn out that Apple subsumes fitness tracker capabilities into the smartwatch or smartphone in much the same way Microsoft crushed the word processing, spreadsheet and presentation software categories when they popularized Microsoft Office. […]

For Fitbit to win they must prove to customers that they solve a problem that encroaching smartwatch and smartphone players can’t. And right now, that’s looking like a tough argument to make.

Smartwatches – at least the Android ones – will eventually rival the price of Fitbit’s high-end products. Fitbit will need to either make smarter products or lower-priced products. It doesn’t appear to have the basis for the former, and it likely won’t have the cost structure for the latter (compared to low-cost rivals). It might just maintain an existence in the US, where its installed base and brand are strong (today). I don’t doubt there will always be some consumers who prefer the Fitbit’s design, user interface, analytics, subscription services, or power efficiency. But, at least in terms of the performance level visible today, Fitbit’s proficiency in those areas doesn’t appear to be unique enough to constitute a protect-able advantage.

Think about the more distant future. In 20 years, if you have (or when you have) a wearable on your wrist, is it more likely to perform a few functions or a broader set of functions (e.g., will it help you communicate)? What kind of affinity will it have for other devices you carry? What type of company is better-positioned to make such a device?

Voice messaging a “job to be done”: A year ago we suggested that voice could become an important aspect of the Watch. At WWDC Apple introduced voice messaging capability to Messages in iOS 8. With iOS 7 a message can be dictated, but it is sent and received as text. In iOS 8 a new microphone button is touched, a message recorded, and the screen swiped to send. When we visited with Tim Cook, he said that walking down streets in China one sees people speaking into their phones sending voice rather than text messages. Porting this capability to the watch makes sense as it is easier to send a voice message from a device already on the wrist than pulling out a phone. It also could aid penetration of China, which Cook said has a ways to go.”

Technology increasingly regional: In the US, adults hold the phone to their ear (or wireless equivalent) while kids prefer text over talk (ours refuse to answer the phone). But countries differ. An article in Motherboard says, “On any given block in Buenos Aires, you are likely to see someone speaking into their phone but not on it; talking to someone, but not necessarily with anyone. In reality, most people are perpetually sending voice memos to one another.” Argentinians are choosing voice memos over texting using less expensive WhatsApp rather than SMS.

Sending voice can be faster than texting when the content is long, complicated, or requires special emphasis. It’s also very useful when text-to-speech doesn’t work well, or at least doesn’t work well on the specific content the user aims to send. It’s also easier to do if the user’s hands are busy.

Google Inc.’s life sciences group has created a health-tracking wristband that could be used in clinical trials and drug tests, giving researchers or physicians minute-by-minute data on how patients are faring.

The experimental device, developed within the company’s Google X research division, can measure pulse, heart rhythm and skin temperature, and also environmental information like light exposure and noise levels. It won’t be marketed as a consumer device, said Andy Conrad, head of the life sciences team at Google.

My take on this is that Google intends to:

1. Start by creating a device that tracks health and environment data *very* accurately (by having to meet clinical trial requirements). Then improve the size, design, power, and other attributes. The next version will be even better for clinical trials. The iteration after that? – suitable for consumers (size, power, etc.).

2. Use insights to improve Android Wear (the OS, or a related reference architecture), even if its aim isn’t to achieve clinical-trial performance on those devices. Very notably, Nest devices could also benefit.

3. In the meantime, Google will learn a lot about biometric and environmental sensors, related data, and related applications for that data.

The problem with wearable technology might just be that nobody particularly wants it. Not if you call it “wearable technology,” that is. That’s the conclusion proffered by Marcus Weller, the chief executive and cofounder of Skully, the maker of a “smart” motorcycle helmet. […]

In fact, one of his most useful and actionable observations — especially for an audience full of people making wearable tech products — is that the word “wearable” really doesn’t work in marketing campaigns. It’s actually off-putting.

Instead, Weller advises wearable makers to focus on what their product enables customers to do: Ride safely, enjoy life better, have more fun, or be more productive.

Even as the new Apple Watch piques consumer interest in wrist-worn devices, the pace of innovation and the tumbling cost, and size, of components will make wearables smaller – so small, some in the industry say, that no one will see them.

Within five years, wearables like the Watch could be overtaken by hearables – devices with tiny chips and sensors that can fit inside your ear. They, in turn, could be superseded by disappearables – technology tucked inside your clothing, or even inside your body.

“In five years, when we look back, everything we see (now) will absolutely be classified as toys, as the first very basic steps of getting this right,” says Nikolaj Hviid, the man behind smart earbuds called the Dash.

I agree, in that the technology will definitely continue to shrink. Power — and compelling use cases — then become the gating factors.